


Time After Time

by 27dragons, tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 03:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17317034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: When Bucky is hit by a magical time bomb, he loses most of his memories… of the War, of his time as the Winter Soldier… but most importantly, of his husband.





	Time After Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nopennamesleft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nopennamesleft/gifts).



> Nopennamesleft: Spending another day in the waiting room of the hospital. If you have a time for a prompt, I’d love to see something with one of the boys waiting by the bedside of the other.
> 
> A/N – This prompt was left for me in a comment on A03 and I’m filling it because I love this person dearly, they’re a regular commenter on my fics. That said PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS to me. I spent like 20 minutes looking for this prompt. Send all prompt requests to my Tumblr askbox or to [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/tisfan) so I don't lose them!

The worst thing in the world was to be standing in the faded green corridor outside a hospital room, hands clenched together, the fingers wrenching at each other, as two experts calmly and quietly told Tony, “We don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

The bad guy was dead, killed in his own explosion, but Bucky had taken the backlash of the energy output, retreating last, as was his habit. Normally, Tony would have said something as minor as an explosion couldn’t hurt his husband, but Bucky had been unconscious, and had remained so for a few _days_.

And when he’d woken up, finally, he hadn’t recognized _anyone_. Bucky had panicked, screamed, fought. Medical staff had been forced to sedate him. Watching him crumple onto the floor, dressed in a hospital down, face twisted with fear… maybe that had been worse.

Tony gritted his teeth. “What do you _mean_ \-- No, that’s not fair. You don’t know. Okay. But you’re working on it, right? You’re going to figure this out.”

“Of course, Mr. Stark,” the lead doctor said. “We’ve called in some experts in neurological damage. If you -- or any of the other Avengers, really -- could look into what sort of explosive device? We’re detecting some anomalies in Mr. Barnes’ blood that make no sense. If we knew more about what caused it, we can treat the symptoms, at least.”

“Send the workup on the anomalies to me,” Tony said. “I have some people I can put on it. And I’ll disassemble the remains of the device myself. I was just... waiting for him to wake up.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Bucky _had_ woken up. It just hadn’t been as much of a relief as Tony had hoped.

He waited until the doctors had gone on their way, then closed his eyes and took a few deep, fortifying breaths before going back into Bucky’s room. “Hey there, sweetheart,” he said softly. Bucky was still unconscious, and maybe it was better that way, until they figured out why he’d forgotten them all. He brushed back Bucky’s hair and leaned over to kiss Bucky’s forehead. “We’re going to fix this. I promise.”

Tony had always noticed, when he’d visited Steve from time to time, or Wilson, or even Clint, how much smaller and less heroic everyone looked in a hospital bed. There were tubes in Bucky’s elbow and machines hooked up that detected his heartrate and oxy count. His metal arm was swathed in bandages to hide it from him, since the first time he’d woken up, he’d tried -- and horrifically, nearly succeeded -- to remove it. The second time he woke up, staff had convinced him that the first wake up was accompanied by vivid hallucinations and that he’d been badly burned, which is why he didn’t feel any pain in that arm.

Tony wasn’t sure the lies were going to do any good in the end, but they were all somewhat at a loss.

What did you do with a super-powered human who didn’t know they were super powered?

He was a danger to others, like this. He was a danger to himself.

Didn’t mean looking at him, with the adamantite cuff holding him to a reinforced bed, didn’t hurt any less.

“I love you.” Tony swallowed again. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, _ever_ , to walk away from Bucky’s bedside. But he needed to fill the others in on the utter lack of answers. He needed to get the doctors’ records and analyses to people who could, perhaps, make sense of them. And he needed to strip the remains of that damn bomb down to its component atoms, if necessary, to figure out how to bring his Bucky back.

Steve was the first person on his feet, as soon as Tony entered the waiting room. It couldn’t have been any easier on him; having Bucky forget Steve, his best friend, more than once, even. It was… mind-numbingly awful, or it would have been, if Tony had been able to get his mind to go numb. He wasn’t sure that was possible.

“Is he okay?”

Nat was there, too, in the waiting room. The important people in Bucky’s life that he’s forgotten club. They should get jackets.

“He’s... resting. Physically, he’s as healthy as he’s ever been. The doctors found some anomalies in his system. They’re going to send me the details, and I’ll feed that to Bruce and Helen. Otherwise... they have no idea what happened.”

“He didn’t get hit on the head,” Clint supplied. “Just finished my scan of the street-feeds. He just… well, look.” Clint popped up the 3D reconstruction, showing the ripple of the bomb’s massive energy release, which hit Bucky full force, and then reached about another meter or so beyond him before dissipating.

Bucky in the film didn’t do more than stumble, shoved by the blast wave.

What did happen was that he blinked, looked around wildly as if he had no idea where he was. Reached up to scrub at his face and saw--

He had stared down at his metal hand as if he’d never seen it before. Turned it slowly, and then screamed. Started trying to get inside his tactical armor, but the fastenings were unfamiliar, he didn’t know where the autozips were. Scrambled at his uniform, tearing the fabric and nano-mesh.

Screamed again, and then went to his knees, still staring at the outstretched hands.

He collapsed, sobbing with terror, and then, mercifully, blacked out.

“No head trauma,” Tony observed. He was shaking all over, just from watching the footage and being unable to comfort his husband. “So it’s not standard amnesia.”

Natasha reached out and caught his hand, squeezing it tightly, trying to comfort him. He gave her full credit for the attempt, but he wasn’t going to feel _right_ again until Bucky came back to himself.

God, what if he never... Tony closed his eyes and let himself hang onto Natasha like a lifeline. “He can’t be gone. He _can’t_.”

“Buck’s tough,” Steve said, as if anything about any of this was reasonable, rational, or had anything to do with physical strength. “If he can come back from Hydra, he can come back from… whatever this is. I just know it.”

Nat took pity on him, because she knew him so well. “Go home,” she said. She didn’t tell him to rest, or eat something, or even to take care of himself, because she knew that he wouldn’t. “Dig into this, and we’ll let you know if there are any changes.”

“The _instant_ anything changes,” Tony insisted, because he had to, not because he thought they wouldn’t. “I don’t care where I am or what I’m doing. I have to... to be here.”

“We know,” Nat said, and she brushed her mouth over his cheek in a light kiss. “But you can’t be _here_ , not right now.”

***

“He’s awake,” Steve reported, panting for breath. Steve seldom ran short of breath, so Tony was going to assume he was experiencing stress, rather than fatigue. “But he doesn’t-- he thinks it’s 1940. That he’s twenty-three years old, that he’s never even been drafted. He knows who I am, but he doesn’t remember how I got this way. Doesn’t trust me.”

Tony stared at Steve dumbly for a long moment, trying to process that. 1940. “So he... he knows who he is. Sort of. That’s... that’s a step.” It was better than the worst-case scenarios that Tony’s brain couldn’t seem to stop spinning every time he tried to rest. Tony shoved his hand through his hair. Christ, in 1940, Bucky hadn’t even been a soldier yet. He was just a _kid_ , really. “It gives us somewhere to start, anyway. I guess. Anyone tried to explain to him what happened? In a general sort of way, obviously, since I’m still trying to separate the tech-bits from the magic-bits on this damn bomb?”

“Well, Buck-- he was always into that future stuff, when we were kids,” Steve said. “He, uh… kinda thinks we’re either aliens who’ve kidnapped him, or some sort of _Things to Come_ , _Chandu the Magician_ science fiction crap going on. He was… they didn’t have to sedate him again, but he only stopped resisting because they said they were going to.”

“Science fiction crap is definitely on the right path,” Tony said, a sad smile tugging at his lip. Bucky was an _adorable_ nerd and Tony loved him for it. It was good to know -- well, have it confirmed -- that it was a longtime trait. “You keep... filling him in. Maybe find him some of those biographies about him? The ones that were written before... you know, the Winter Soldier. He’s probably still too freaked out to cope with all that.”

Steve nodded. “You should… you should go visit. Nat thinks it’ll be good for him to see people who care about him, even if he doesn’t remember. Since we can’t, you know, bring his family in.” The last of Bucky’s siblings had passed on from extreme old age a few years back, and while he had grand nieces and nephews, those relationships were still tentative, all the way around. Hard to cope with, for them, and for Bucky as well.

Tony drew a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay. I’ll... I’ve got some magic-gunk samples I want to drop with Strange, and then I’ll head to the hospital.” That was going to hurt. A lot. But if it would help, Tony would do goddamn near anything.

“Nat’s with him, now,” Steve said. “Thought I’d grab some food, and a little sleep, before I head back.” He squeezed Tony’s shoulder, bracingly. “He’s alive. There’s still hope, Tony.”

“Trust you to be all chin-up Captain Optimism about it,” Tony gibed, though his heart really wasn’t in the banter. He desperately, _desperately_ wanted Steve to be right. “Go fuel the righteousness and get some rest, Steve.”

“I remember when I thought the world’s problems could be solved by socking Hitler in the jaw,” Steve said. “I miss those days, sometimes.”

It would have been nice, Tony supposed, if the guy who’d done this had lived through it, and therefore, could be blamed and held accountable. But no, he’d vaporized himself, along with half the city block and the last half century or so of Bucky’s memories. Pity. Tony would have liked to punch that guy.

Nat was nowhere to be found when Tony arrived at the hospital. In further fact, Bucky was alone, and awake, in his hospital room when Tony walked in.

Bucky glanced up and a strange spasm of emotion crossed his handsome features before they smoothed out again. “So, what’s your story?” he scoffed. “My long-forgotten kiddie school teacher?”

Yeah, Tony had been right. This was going to hurt. But he and Bucky had promised not to lie to each other, no matter what, and even if this Bucky didn’t _know_ that, it went against the grain to do anything else. “Nothing as easy as that,” Tony said, lowering himself into the horrible chair that was in the room for visitors. “I’m actually your husband, here in the future.”

“That’s jus’ about the _least_ believable thing anyone’s told me yet,” Bucky snorted, his voice straining for calmly rational, although there was a nervous stutter near the end, and his eyes darted wildly around the room to see if anyone else was listening. If anyone… _knew_. The face of a kid who’d just been outed in front of his church group.

“I know it must sound crazy,” Tony said. “But it’s really true. I know, right now I probably don’t look like any kind of a prize, but we’re actually... We’re role models, we’re _hope_ for a lot of people who have been afraid to be themselves.”

Bucky glowered, not the crazy-eyed assassin that Tony sometimes saw come out when they were Avenging, but a young man who was desperately frightened and trying not to be. “I ain’t-- who tol’ you I was some sort of nancy-boy queer?”

God, it was his Bucky’s face, but that expression, that voice was so _young_. Something in his chest squeezed until Tony began to wonder if he were going to have a heart attack. “You did,” he said gently. “You told me you’d figured it out when you were, what, fourteen? Watching Joey Kinley lighting candles at church.”

Bucky’s eyes got huge, rounded, and his mouth dropped open. “I never… I never tol’ anyone,” he said, voice a tiny little thing wrapped around a huge confession. “Thought God would strike me dead, right there on the spot. Was gonna go to hell and no one was going to mourn me. I told… I told _you_ that?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it was easy, but you did. We were still dating then, had been seeing each other for about six months.”

A mix of terror, anxiety, and somehow, like he was putting down a huge burden that he’d carried for as long as he could remember, relief, crossed Bucky’s face. “Uh… what’s your name?”

“Tony.” He wondered briefly if Bucky would connect the dots, then mentally shrugged and added, “Stark. Tony Stark.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, not like he was agreeing, but just filling up the space. “Damn, Joey, I… he had just the prettiest brown eyes I ever saw, like… like velvet. My ma had a velvet collar on one of her coats, it was so soft. Th’ softest thing I ever touched. Did I tell you that? It don’t… what you say, it don’t feel real, I feel… lost.”

He shifted a little to look straight at Tony. “You have brown eyes, jus’ like he did. Can you look right at me an’ swear, swear this is real, this is _really_ happening?”

Bucky’s eyes were wide and scared and still so goddamned young, and Tony wanted to just gather Bucky up in his arms and promise that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t think Bucky would welcome such close contact, not yet. That didn’t stop Tony from needing it, though. “I swear,” he said. “I swear on, on my parents’ graves, that I’m telling you the truth, that this is real. That we’re married and it’s been the best damn two years of my entire life, and I love you with everything in me, and I’m not going to stop until we find a way to help you.”

Tony wasn’t even sure if Bucky realized that he was crying; it wasn’t really full on weeping, just a shimmer in those pale, blue eyes. He blinked rapidly and the tears vanished into sparkles along his eyelashes. “I--”

Which of course was when Nat strolled in, a weapon’s satchel over her shoulder. “ _S dobrym utrom_ ,” she greeted him in cheery Russian, then paused. “Tony--”

Tony’s Russian was never going to be as good or unaccented as Nat or Bucky’s, but he did understand it.

He wasn’t sure who was more shocked, Bucky, or himself, when Bucky returned Nat’s good morning without hesitating. “ _Do you know when I can leave_?”

“Ha!” Nat said, grinning and returning to English. “I thought that might work. Sorry to interrupt, Tony.”

Bucky looked shocked, nearly to the point of comedy. Tony jumped out of the chair and flung his arms around Natasha, because he needed to hug _someone_. “He’s still in there,” Tony gasped. “It’s not _gone_ , just... hidden.”

“He is,” Nat agreed. “You are. He is.”

“What… what was that, what did I say, is this… witchcraft?” Bucky stammered.

“As far as we can tell,” Nat said, “yes. Ever use a gun before, Barnes?”

“No,” Bucky said, forehead wrinkling. “Was the welterweight boxing champion two years running. Never needed more than my fists, to--”

Nat rummaged in the bag and pulled out Bucky’s favorite short range pistol. “Field strip that for me, soldier.” She tossed it on the bed, where it bounced between Bucky’s knees.

Bucky picked it up doubtfully, handling it almost gingerly. It looked foreign on Bucky, who was so casually comfortable handling firearms that he nearly looked naked without one. “Look at me,” Tony suggested. “Don’t think about the gun, you’ll just get in your own way. Look at me and tell me something about... Oh, about Steve.”

Bucky turned his chin at the sound of Tony’s voice, hands moving automatically, the gun turning from a strange, alien object into his trusted weapon, into an extension of himself. “Uh, well, one time, we were jus’ near to getting done with schoolin’ and he had to miss a bunch of it, he caught scarlet fever, and he couldn’t draw or write or nothing. His hands were shaking. But we had this stupid essay to write, and he didn’t want to fail. So he told me what to write, and I… I used my right hand to do it, so that it would look all shaky, like Steve’d done it his own self.”

Tony kept looking at Bucky, holding that gaze, but by the time Bucky was half a sentence in, his hands started moving, methodically stripping the gun and laying out the parts on the blanket. When his eyes started to drift, Tony drew him back. “Well don’t leave me in suspense,” he cajoled. “Did he get a passing grade?”

“He did,” Bucky said. “In English an’ art, but he failed outta history.” Bucky put the last piece of the weapon down and then stared at the neat layout. “Am I possessed? You gonna call a preacher t’ get the devil out of me? Husband an’ knowin’ and… what is fucking going on here?” His voice spiralled up in a panic, and then--

“You have retrograde episodic memory loss,” Nat said, cutting through the panic. “You remember everything that happened to you before-- whatever happened to send you back to 1940. But all your procedural memory is intact. You know how to do things. Your skills aren’t lost to you.” She shoved a pad of paper onto the bed along with a pen. “Sign your name.”

Bucky didn’t hesitate, plucking the pen out of her hand with his _left_ hand. He scrawled and then stared at his signature. _J. Barnes-Stark._

Tony swallowed against tears of relief. He was still in there. They were going to find a way to bring him back. “Told you,” he said, making it as light as possible. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Procedural memory, huh?” Bucky wondered. “I just… know how t’ do these things, because I learned it? Before… after? I will have learned this?” He chewed his lip for a moment, then crooked a finger at Tony. “Only one way t’ be sure, I guess.”

Tony stepped closer, raising an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

Bucky appeared to brace himself, like he was about to put his hand in a fire, then--

Tony was being kissed.

He’d kissed Bucky hundreds, probably even thousands of times, sweet and soft, or rough and dirty and everything in between. Like the first time they’d kissed, or the last time they’d kissed, it was both perfect and extraordinary and utterly familiar. His lips knew the shape of Bucky’s mouth, his tongue knew that taste, his hands went around Bucky’s shoulders, fingers curling in the same, familiar pattern. Bucky’s hands were in Tony’s hair and he was doing that _thing_ , where he brushed his thumbs along the underside of Tony’s ears. That thing that made Tony weak in the knees, every single time.

Tony groaned and sagged against the bed, all but climbing right onto Bucky’s lap. He fell into the kiss with a desperate, frantic need, clutching at Bucky’s shoulders and then sliding down Bucky’s arms, tracing at the seams of the metal arm and holding on as tight as he could. “Oh god,” he rasped when Bucky finally drew back a little, and slumped forward, resting his forehead against Bucky’s.

“You sure as _hell_ kiss me like you know what you’re doin’,” Bucky said, touching his lips lightly with his fingers. “That…. That was so weird, like… kissin’ you for the first time, but… not.” He suddenly went tomato red, eyes darting over to Nat, who was casually looking out the window, as if she wasn’t the least bit affected by their display.

“I’d tell you to get a room, but… you have a nice one here, and I’ll just… see myself out,” Nat said.

“Yeah, go on,” Tony said, grinning. “Go give Steve the good news.”

Nat disappeared in one of her characteristic fades, the door barely making a sound as she closed and probably secured it behind her.

“Tony--” Bucky said… “we’re. Actually married? Like, that’s allowed?” When Tony nodded, he held up one finger, then added. “Do you… do you love me? Could you say… like you always say it?”

Tony leaned in close, nuzzling very lightly at Bucky’s temple, breathing in the familiar scent. “Love you, snowflake.”

“Love you, too, dollface,” Bucky told him, and his eyes were wide and shining again. He stroked Tony’s cheek with his fingers. “Guess… guess I must, ‘cause… I feel that. Right in here--” he touched his chest. “You’ll… you’re gonna wait for me, right? While it all comes back?”

“As long as it takes, I’m here for you, sweetheart,” Tony promised.


End file.
